AS one half of the duo behind one of the most talked about theatre shows of recent years, Jeremy Dyson is delighted that audiences around the country are finally getting the chance to be scared out of their wits.

Next week Ghost Stories comes to The Lowry - 10 years after it left audiences shocked, stunned and delighted in equal measure during a run in London’s West End.

“When we wrote it, we thought we were being clever and had written something that would be easy to tour,” said Jeremy who created Ghost Stories with Andy Nyman. “Then we discovered that it really wasn’t that easy at all. So then it became a case of how do you put the show on the road? Technically it’s quite a complicated show.”

Jeremy is reluctant to go into details about the show - it’s lack of publicity photos and requests that the audience don’t share too much about what they have witnessed have led it gaining almost cult status.

“We asked the audience to keep the secret and what’s been amazing after all this time is that they have,” said Jeremy. “It really is quite hard to find out about what actually goes on in the show. It’s a lovely thing that people have co-operated with us like that.”

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The show revolves around a professor of parapsychology delivering a lecture on ghost stories using three case studies. The show is genuinely scary - it carries a warning that under 15s should not attend - and theatre audiences have loved it.

“The audience are very much part of the show from the moment they walk in,” said Jeremy, who is also one of the creators and performers in the award-winning League of Gentlemen.

“We get lot of people coming who say ‘I don’t like horror but I really liked that’,” he said. “I think the show has an appeal beyond a traditional horror audience.”

Part of the success of the show is down to the interests of its two creators.

Andy, who has worked on many of Derren Brown’s hugely successful tours, is steeped in the history of stage magic whereas Jeremy, an author as well as performer, has had a lifelong love of classic ghost stories.

“I think we both have similar sensibilities,” he said. “It’s an enjoyable thing to be part of trying to create the kind of show we would have loved to have seen when we first knew each other when we were 15.

“We definitely wanted to give audience really full experience. We are both fans of classic Disneyland and old theme park rides and we talked about what had experienced in that world.

“It was a question of how we could tell a story with some of those techniques. We wanted to break out of the confines of being on the stage so that the audience is right there having experience along with the characters.”

The show is finally going on tour having been revived in London for a short run last year.

“That revival gave the designer a chance to redesign the set so that we could finally tour the show,” said Jeremy. “It also gave us the opportunity to solve some of the little niggles we had with the show in the first place and to unlock some of the things that eluded us before.”

Ten years is a long time in theatre and production techniques have moved on a lot in that time.

“That’s true,” said Jeremy, “but one thing we have always loved is that we could have staged this 100 years ago as we’re using lot of classic stage magic. Andy is very knowledgeable in world of magic and conjuring and we are drawing on some very tried and tested methods in the show.

“Where technology really comes in is with the sound. The sound we have in the show is not something we could have done 20 years ago and has come on in 10 years since we first did it.”

So what is it that makes audiences sign up to be scared on a nightly basis?

“That’s complicated,” laughed Jeremy. “There are lots of reasons for it.

“Some of it may be that we live very safe lives now and yet still have mechanism in brain that need exercising. It’s similar to people who go on rollercoasters which some people find horrible but many do it for fun.”

Producing something genuinely scary on stage is not easy, he conceded.

“You can’t fool an audience,” he said. “They are the ultimate arbiters.

“All we ask is that you go into the show with an open mind and enjoy the ride.”

Ghost Stories, The Lowry, Salford Quays, Tuesday, February 18 to Saturday, February 22. Details from www.thelowry.com